s. He's a clumsy stot, and never had much
sense."

"And I met another with his hand on his side," I said.

"That would be little James. He's a fine lad with a skean-dhu on a dark
night, but there was maybe too much light here for his trade."

"And I met a third who reeled like a drunk man," I said.

"Ay," said he meditatively, "that was Long Colin. He's the flower o'
the flock, and I had to pink him. At another time and in a better place
I would have liked a bout with him, for he has some notion of
sword-play."

"Who were the men?" I asked, in much confusion, for this laughing
warrior perplexed me.

"Who but just my cousins from Glengyle. There has long been a sort of
bicker between us, and they thought they had got a fine chance of
ending it."

"And who, in Heaven's name, are you," I said, "that treats murder so
lightly?"

"Me?" he repeated. "Well, I might give ye the answer you gave me this
very day when I speired the same question. But I am frank by nature,
and I see you wish me well. Come in bye, and we'll discuss the matter."

He led me into a room where a cheerful fire crackled, and got out from
a press a bottle and glasses. He produced tobacco from a brass box and
filled a long pipe.

"Now," said he, "we'll understand each other better. Ye see before you
a poor gentleman of fortune, whom poverty and a roving spirit have
driven to outland bits o' the earth to ply his lawful trade of
sea-captain. They call me by different names. I have passed for a Dutch
skipper, and a Maryland planter, and a French trader, and, in spite of
my colour, I have been a Spanish don in the Main. At Tortuga you will
hear one name, and another at Port o' Spain, and a third at Cartagena.
But, seeing we are in the city o' Glasgow in the kindly kingdom o'
Scotland, I'll be honest with you. My father called me Ninian Campbell,
and there's no better blood in Breadalbane."

What could I do after that but make him a present of the trivial facts
about myself and my doings? There was a look of friendly humour about
this dare-devil which captured my fancy. I saw in him the stuff of
which adventurers are made, and though I was a sober merchant, I was
also young. For days I had been dreaming of foreign parts and an
Odyssey of strange fortunes, and here on a Glasgow stairhead I had
found Ulysses himself.

"Is it not the pity," he cried, "that such talents as yours should rust
in a dark room in the Candleriggs? Believe me, Mr. Garvald, I